I've watched some hands on videos on Youtube of this phone, it does look nicer in the vids. I have a S2 and think the S3 looks nicer. The thing thats always bothered me about my S2 (international version) is the bump that sticks out on the bottom back side, where the speaker is. Looks tacky. Where as the S3 just has a completely flat back which looks much nicer.

The only issue i have with the S3 is that the display is almost definitely pentile, and certainly looks it from the full size close up images here. If this was SAMOLED+ (non-pentile) instead of SAMOLED then that display would be the ballz.

Love the performance though! Better than expected. I really wanted a Snapdragon S4 SoC with a better GPU, but now i'll happily take the Exynos 4 Quad.Reply

Well the AT&T version might have different CPU, possibility even like HTC One X differs in US vs. international markets. So don't count the S4 out just yet, especially since it would go nicely with the LTE capable chipset.Reply

Regardless of which galaxy you guys think looks better, I can assure you this phone will look beautiful in your hands. If you guys insist on glass that shatters and ceramics that chip, get another phone. Nuff said.Reply

I would say the Galaxy S3's UI feels better, if the previous Touchwiz4.0 VS Sense3.5 difference tells us anything. I know Sense 4 was stripped down a lot, but I also hear that the HTC One X with Sense 4 doesn't yet fully utilize GPU rendering (UI side of things). Some users complain of stuttering with the OneX, and I've seen some myself on some videos. The browser on the OneX is just not on par with the overall device, it has lots of useless refreshes, text re-flows, and page redraws to the point where it affects the browsing performance very negatively. On the other hand, I have yet to see any video where the Galaxy S3 lags or stutters in any department. Even the Galaxy S2 was superior in smooth performance than any other newer device out there. I don't see why Samsung won't improve on that with the S3.

Add to that the fact that Exynos almost always has superior benchmarks in its class, in addition to better software optimization. I say the HTC ONLY wins in the more professional ans sleeker looks of both the device and the UI.Reply

Yes.. Earlier release had a stuttering due to Sense 4.0..But a software update has made it all clear and is now butter smooth...Seriously, I have nothing to do with a such a high performance S3... Having a top notch score doesnt tell the whole story to a must buy phone.... Surely the look also counts.. First look will be the first impression.... And HTC One X has it with an decent scores wit All round positives...Reply

A 32 nm A5X will be more than competitive. It's a good question whether Apple will choose to use it rather than a die shrunk A5 though. A higher clock A5 will match these benchmarks. An A5X will be 50% faster. Maybe even close to 100%. Reply

A5X with the same GPU is still too large and power hungry even at 32nm to go in to a phone. Look at the insanely large batteries already needed for iFad 3, a one node shrink isn't going to massively change the power usage enough. The only way they could possibly get that in a phone at 32nm is by using extremely low clocks. Then the GPU might still compare but the CPU would be much slower, even slower than the iPhone 4S for CPU performance. 32nm A5 is more likely, which i highly doubt would match the Exynos 4 Quad atleast on CPU performance.Reply

The reason why the new iPad needs such an enormous battery is its 2048*1536 screen. A5X is more power hungry than A5 of course, but only in high workload. idle and even in small tasks, A5X equals A5 in terms of power consumption if not beats it. So a 32nm A5X with little tweaks would take it dangerously close to the S3.

S3 is a monstrous phone both in size and in performance. I think Samsung used a bigger screen:-720p on a 4.2" display is harder and much more expensive to build due to high ppi.-4,8 inch gives more room for the battery which the quad core CPU needs more than anything.

But I think that people might not want a bigger screen than already over sized S2. But again geeks tend to droll over specs than usability, so it'll win their hearts.Reply

A5X uses way more power with that GPU. It also need extra cooling added on top of the chip and still gets hotter.

And as proven many times with Tegra 3 already, quad core does not use more power. So once again you're wrong. And being as the S3 has the first 32nm quad core it will likely use considerably less power than the A5 and other dual-core SoC's.

The S2 wasn't at all over sized, it's also thinner than the iPhone as well which helps compensate. It's funny you mention usability because the tiny midget screen the iPhone has is totally unacceptable and makes using it harder even if you dont have large hands. Theres a reason nearly all other phones are using larger screens - because they're better!Reply

You just cant compare Tegra 3 with a normal quad core. Tegra is an hybrid product with a companion core that switches the quad cores on and off and simply becomes single core under idle load. The reason why A5X has a heat spreader is because of the quad core GPU. Under heavy load it becomes quite hot. But under normal load it is THE SAME CPU as the A5 if not further developed to use less power.

Hold an S2 with one hand and try to touch the upper cross corner of the screen with your thumb while firmly holding it in your palm. You just CAN'T. Because it's too big. And don't get me started with the Galaxy Note joke.

Do you think Apple sticks to 3,5" screen because they cannot develop a larger screen product? Do you seriously believe that?

Apple strategy is simple, really. Do something that makes sense for the average user. Design in a such way that the product just feels right ergonomically and aesthetically.

Samsung is more like an OEM. Pick the best shit out there and combine. There you go! The fastest phone with the brightest screen. No, thanks. I'd have a design that is thoroughly thought and developed.Reply

Do you think really think Samsung didn't develop a 3.5 inch screen for their G series cause they couldn't? Do you seriously believe that? ;)

Apple stuck to 3.5 because that's what dictator Steve said is the perfect magical size. Now that people know better they're upping to 4 inches with the next iPhone. They're just following the trend like any other company. Wake up. Meeehhhh Meeehhh.

And unfortunately for you, everyone review of the note was full of praise. Are you saying all those 5 million people who bought the galaxy note is a fool? Hardly. Need a napkin? You are oozing your hate sauce everywhere.Reply

I'm not hating anything. I love competition, but Samsung's products are not for me.

Samsung couldn't have done a 3.5" galaxy simply because they could not have differentiated themselves enough to make a sale. If all specs and sizes are similar, who do you think will sell more, Apple or Samsung?

And yes 3.2-3.7" is still the best size for a smartphone for useability.

But keep in mind that without dictator Steve, you'd never have had Galaxy. You'd be typing with your 8mp camera/qwerty/ BlackJack.

Apple's screen size increase is purely battery limitation related. If there could be a 8Whr battery in the size of the current iPhone's battery, Apple would have never upped the screen size in the next gen.

I tend to be a fanboy of good products that have been designed well. Unfortunately Samsung products does not feel that way.Reply

I'm 6'2", don't have huge hands for a guy my size. I have a droid X in an otter box case.I use it ALL THE TIME.I can hold it comfortably in one hand and get to anything I want to reach with that hand's thumb. Again, this is a 4.3" screen phone in an otter box.

Just because your hands are too small for a large screen phone and you don't want a large screen phone does not mean that nobody can or wants to use one.

Please try to keep in mind there is a difference between your preferences and everyone else's.

As far as the 5" screen goes, I have been saying for two years that I would like a 5" screen. I don't care that much about size as I was carrying a phone and a PDA until I got my X.

Bring on the 5" HTC flagship with the quad core S4 and Adreno 320 which is supposed to be released later this year. Reply

You must have some massive pockets and/or never sit down with your phone in your pocket. I'll point out that the majority of people do not remove their phone from their pocket while sitting or walking because it's already comfortable.Reply

An A5X from Samsung's 32 nm node will be about 95 mm^2. This would be about 25% smaller than the current A5 (~124 mm^2) in the iPhone 4S. With a 20% savings in power as well, it'll be about the same power envelope.

Apple has prioritized GPU over CPU when they have these constrained situations. At least GPU of a certain baseline. You can make the call right now that the dual-core A9 in the 2012 iPhone will be no more than 1 GHz.Reply

If Apple can't get a new chip out in time (A15 based A6 or something), my bet would be something along the lines of a die shrunk, 32nm A5 with a ~50% speed bump. Remember, A5 in the iPhone runs at 800 MHz, so even a 50% speed bump would only bring it to 1.2 GHz.

If we were to scale the iPhone 4s benchmarks presented here by 50%, the new scores would be fairly comparable to the GS3 on the graphics front and not be too far behind on the browser side of things.

I guess it would be interesting to see what they have to do to bring 2012 levels of SoC performance and LTE while maintaining some semblance of battery life without increasing the phone to the size of a small tablet - we all know that the reason everyone else's 'flagship' phones are 4.5"+ is because it provides more room for a battery, and this is something Apple's been keen to avoid so far.Reply

Browser benchmarks are not CPU benchmarks. Unless you compare two phones with the exact same version of the browser.Apple's A5's CPU (or A5X, it's the same) is no faster than any other Cortex A9.A 1.2 GHz A5 would have a CPU comparable to the Galaxy S2, so it would still be 2011 levels of performance.

Apple skipped the CPU upgrade the last time, so I believe this time they will show something much more powerful. They might have a quad core A9 too, a dual A15, or at the bare minimum, a high frequency dual A9.Reply

I really doubt that Apple will have a Cortex-A15 SoC for the 2012 iPhone.

There's only two possibilities: a 32 nm A5X or a 32 nm A5. If it is a 32 nm A5X, it'll be no more than 1 GHz. If it is a 32 nm A5, it'll be 1 GHz, maybe 1.2 GHz.

Both options will be competitive to the Galaxy S3. For 95%, maybe 99%, of a consumer's workload, dual-core will be perfectly fine, if not overkill. Quad-core is overkill. 95% of the software out there are either single threaded or only has one thread that really requires CPU power.

With the A5X in an iPhone, Apple is giving up the 5% of folks who would use software that is embarrassingly parallel such as computational modeling, in favor for higher performance in gaming or anything that can use the GPU. With games being the dominant app in the app store, it is certainly the right choice.Reply

Now this is damn solid reviewing, comparing different own measuring and calculation technique with own subjective experience. Looking forward for another detailed, solid, phone review. The effects of battery life is of outmost importance to me, or else i will have to cancel my preorder.

Btw glad we didnt get some fancy material, with a nice marketing name, only to be shattered in real life. We want flexible plastic :)Reply

CPU perf is not really tested,here even more so than in the full reviews,it's all way too much browser orientated and you get a huge impact from the browswer and momory/storage perf - the results are relevant for each specific device but aren't painting a clear picture of the SoC.In the full review i wish you wouldn't ignore storage perf,battery life when gaming and battery life when idle (standby time).Reply

I think what you are asking for is irrelevant. Those specific test results would be important if you were to buy the soc by itself to use as you saw fit, but that is not how it is. You get this soc with this phone, and that is how it should be tested.Reply

Also I have to laugh when the author writes "so and so found the browser to be *buttery smooth*". Oh for gods sake the author and/or his friend are blind if they think any Android browser is smooth. The endless frame skipping that essentially every ICS browser has is maddening. And response lag increases dramatically on heavy websites.

I have the new iPad 3. It stutters as well in image heavy sites like Engadget and The Verge. And not only that image heavy pdfs takes about a second for them to clear up with each swipe of the page.

The iPad 3 needed a quad core processor as well as gpu. All these micro stutters are a little annoying to say the least. I can still live with that because I do a lot of reading and retina density really does help.Reply

My iPad 3 does not stutter on Engadget or The Verge. Are you using Safari or a 3rd party browser without the smooth UIWebView scrolling enabled (which unfortunately is most of them since it's a private API call to enable it).

I can tell you that at least by watching top and Instruments, scrolling quickly in Safari on a page like Engadget does not seem to be CPU bound on either an iPad 2 or iPad 3, so not sure what the issue is you're having on your device.

PDFs are nowhere near as fast as Safari on web pages, but I haven't manipulated any on a newer Android device for comparison. Does Android have native PDF viewing? (I had to download a reader for my Cyanogenmod 9 TouchPad).Reply

Samsung is known to implement a multitude of optimizations in the browser. The changes made are pretty evident in the Samsung Galaxy S2 (on Gingerbread), where every other Android browser lagged (including the G2x and Nexus S). S2 didn't have any "frame skipping" to talk about, even with 1080p video playing in Flash. I'm pretty sure it will be the same in the S3. Reply

I see Samsung still insists on having their Battery is Charged notification. Looks like if I get this phone, I'll be making sure to install a custom rom that disables that, as there's nothing worse than being woken up overnight because my phone wants to tell me it's now charged. (on various Samsung phones, it would even vibrate or alert you even if the volume was muted). At the very least, it would light up the screen.

Is the Sunspider test still relevant? I know Google has said since last year that it has become pretty irrelevant for them and they will stop testing so much against it for Chrome. To show how irrelevant it became, they even did a test made of 50xSunspider tests, just to get a little more complexity in there and act more like a real world scenario.

But it shows the dual core 1.2 Ghz Galaxy S2 is only 10% slower than Galaxy S3. That can't be right. Is the difference in performance that small? I think in Sunspider software optimizations have a larger impact than the hardware as well, so that also makes it pretty irrelevant when comparing hardware performance.Reply

Well, they said it's irrelevant for Chrome and desktop browsers once they hit a certain performance level, which these phones are still far from. But yeah, I'd much rather have page load times or something than it since everyone seems to optimize around it. Speaking of which, I'd also like to see how they handle background tab loading. Reply

Sunspider is single threaded. So, the scores are reflective of 1.2 and 1.4 GHz cores. This is the performance improvement you should be expecting as the vast majority of consumer software is single threaded or are only computationally intensive on one thread.

It will take specialist applications like video rendering to really make use of 4 cores. Reply

Browser/SoC optimization. For example, both using stock quad core A9 cores, the Galaxy S3 leads Tegra 3 phones in Sunspider and any other browser test, because they optimize the browser code around the SoC better since they make both the phone and the SoC. Reply

Not sure why... One X performance is similar, looks WAY better, has by far a superior display, and has less junky software added which theoretically means faster updates compared to Samsung who already has a history for poor update support.Reply

My Galaxy Nexus with a mild overclock and custom Rom/Kernal gets a browsermark score of 120k versus the GS3 score of 160k. I can only imagine what the GS3 will manage to accomplish once the phone is truly unleashed. Reply

OK, so Browsermark looks good, but is Samsung tuning thier browser to do these types of benchmarks faster? It is not unheard of - nVidia and AMD both have done it for certain benchmarks. On a phone, the cross platform benchmarks are pretty limited so it wouldn't take much to code for the few that are out there.

What does a good browsermark score equate into page load times? Hopefully you guys can cover this in the review.Reply

The new iPad 2 and new AppleTV are likely the first products to have 32 nm ARM SoCs from Samsung's 32 nm fab. Undoubtedly, Apple wanted it for the new iPad and the A5X too, but they probably couldn't guarantee the requested volumes. Maybe Samsung prioritized the Exynos 4 Quad over Apple's A5X? Who knows.Reply

Don't know why everyone's complaining about the design, I think samsung nailed it with the big screen and small bezel. Plus they dropped the apple-copying and useless design feature that is leaving equally thick bezels above and below the screen.

A fast phone shrink-wrapped around an awesome screen... is just what I want...Reply

I'm glad this phone is roundish at the corners which is so much better than the rectangular Galaxy S2. Only if the back of the phone had that soft touch like HTC phones..or maybe kevlar finish of Razr. The back finish looks plasticky.Reply

So you think its an advantage that Microsoft can't deliver a multithreaded OS? They haven't managed to deliver a good multithreaded OS for X86 in over 30 years. A feature that have worked on Unix since late 1960 :)

But you point is valid. Microsoft shows how much better integrated design is then fragmented. Since they dictate the hardware, they can optimize everything with GPU/SIMD.

Windows8 will be interesting. The fragmented X86 version Vs the integrated ARM version. The fragmented version needs 5-10 times the CPU power to active the same user experience as ARM for Windows.

Nerds love horse power. A quad 1.4ghz Vs single core 1 ghz have to be better. Just like a 400 hp car would be slower then a good designed 100HP car. Reply

I'm a fan of the Apple iPhone 4S but I'm always looking "over the fence" to see how Android smartphones compare in raw performance. Until yesterday, the iPhone 4S was the fastest smartphone running GLBenchmark 2's Egypt Offscreen and "T-Rex" Pro Offscreen benchmarks -- fair tests since they force all devices to run at 1280x720 on a virtual screen. As you have shown with this article, the Samsung Galaxy S III is now the "King of Egypt."

On another note, I'm wondering why the Galaxy S III does relatively poorly on the Linpack benchmark with a 102 Mflops rating (Multithreading). The HTC One X (AT&T) blows it away with a 215 Mflops rating. Even the iPhone 4S beats it with a 131 Mflops rating. Thoughts?Reply

Lack of contrast?Any AMOLED has a insanely high contrast ratio. FAR above any LCD.The reason LCD is easier to see outdoors is partially because of the reflection of the outdoor lighting off the display.If you kill the back-light on an LCD panel, then put the display under direct sunlight, you can see the image, including some color.

I agree that any AMOLED display is difficult to see outdoors. It is just the nature of the tech. For outdoor use, LCD will likely reign king for some time.Reply

Yes, and I agree with you! lol And millions of others will as well. And I'm sure this phone will win the phone of the year award again. I also believe it is one of the most beautiful phones ever produced. Perfect design/hardware evolution to the Galaxy Series. Seriously you... kids lol, what did you want some robot looking device that shoots phasers? Kudos to Samsung! Reply

My friend has this phone (he is testing it for Samsung). I love the device. Light, fast, big screen.

Then I played some youTube videos, again, smooth, fast... But then I noticed that there is not much depth in the video. I grabbed my daughter's ipod and played the same video. Guess what, even with a much smaller screen, her ipod video quality was much better. Note that both are with high brightness. The S3 is much worse at lower brightness.

Anyhow, may be I'm over analyzing this, but I think the display quality is much more important than the speed of the processor (as long as the processor can keep up with much of the apps). It's much more pleasant to read or watch on the iPhone 4s than any device out there. This makes me thinking: why Apple puts so much effort on the display? Well, I think they are about selling online contents. So if the display is good, you, as a user, end up spend hour and hour playing with it. Then you more likely to buy more apps, video, ebook etc. All Apple's competitors are about selling hardware. So if they can cut a corner on the display to make more profit, they would. There is no incentive for them to put on the best of the best. Apple, on the other hand, have a big margin on the contends to offset the cost of the hardware. As such, they can afford to put on the best display they can get.

I'm not an Apple fan, but I think their strategy is brilliant. At the end, they may end up winning both the device sale and the contents wars.Reply